Text for NYL1857-02_Page_01

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C|t IJtfo gork I rita
IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY,
At 15 BEE.KM-1* STBEET.
Jims II. Welsh,
JoHM CLAWCT,
IIeni'.y Mouroar,
i-
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[Written for the >Tew York SLeader.]
..l.ntl.C FLOEESCP
IT Ji CAL CAEI.
[But no one oxeert Florence knows the mmmttt
lbc white-haired gentleman's affection for the girl.***" ;
The child herself often wonders at a certain seeresy he
kwtvs in it Ho hoards her in his heart I He cannot - „ . , ., ..,,
bSr to «M "*r See darkened with a cloud I He can . us. d for grocery purposes, to flourish lt Wildly
not bear to soe her sit apart 1 He fancies that she feel- w;th )jrofcen threats, as a man dots often who
PRICE FOUR CENTS.
t "light wh"n there is none! Ha steals away to-ce
her in her sleep I It pleases him to hare her come .n
Ihe morning and wake him I He is fondest or her and
most loving to her when there is no creature by ! The
child says then sometimes: ^ - •
'•Pear Grandpapa, why do you cry when yon kiss
me?"
He onlv answers :
" little Florenc*! little Florence !' and smooths
away the curls that shade her earnest eyes.
memos' Dombey & Son.]
" Dear Graa;Ipspa, why do you weep, whene'er yoj
kiss your child—
Wiy do yoor eyes £0 foHow me, with looks so sortly
■M ;
Why do you start when e'er yoa sec a cloud upon my
f:ice—
Why let me sleep upon your breast—your birdling's
nestling rlace I''
<■• And when I como at early morn, to wake you from
your sleep,
Why do you tike me to your heart, then turn away
and weep ?
Why do you Taney oftentimes that I should feel a
slight—
When my heart i3 running o'er with love, and life,
looks gay nnd bright V
Thus srake a little f.iiry girl, as chatting in her glee.
She nestle.! closer to tis heart, perched on her grandpa's knee,
And hi a white haired gentleman with his arms
aro;.n 1 her thrown.
Smiles Uarfuily upon his pet while fun Jiy gazing
dowa.
'• Uy little F.orenco I—darling girl I—ho chokingly replies,
Ilia treat *M*f heaving In hU grief, whila hot tears
fill his eyes—
" My Uttlo Florence !—Jailing child, what memories inward spring
To wheu her mothsr was a'child,—and ttose scenes
backward bring f
Ste. now ho smoothes away the curls which shade her
earnest eyes—
Thc very eyes her molher had; how back his meni'ry
Hies.
He MMI held her -:i«;ft<r so!—no, l"aul was all his
hope,
AnJ poor neglected Flcrenca with her brother couSd
not cope.
And now there comes across his soul, and lights his
tear drowned heart—
A vision of his daughter's form beside Paul's little
cart.
Ho see* I-aul's little shrunken arm around her MM
in awe,
Ai,d that jaze cf curious innocence excited by thc
roar '
Ai come oa the tumbling billows of the ocoan to the I Barty Burke has never been discovered
shore.
Andagxn he hears that question of— 'Say, sister.
wbat do they
The sou waves running ever hither, thither, always—
aay:
Arc they aot wildly mournful aa they break thus all
the day—
jelling, we*plng, dying, mourning', but dear sister,
what ~iy they f
And how, when all thc rest tad gone and she refused
tog",
striving then to show aHlction, he repulsed her with
a blow;
Uow lM| her gentle girlish breast felt the bitter cruel
smart;
AnJ that parting look, that cry or pain which issued
from her heart,
Come like ghosts acrcss his mem'ry, and the salt tears
Oesbly start.
! is deeply intoxicated, and then it was supposed
1 tint he had dropped the knife and tollowcd
=oma other vagary of his drunken imagination.
The discovery of the mangled body, and the
! investigation which followed—showed that the
' knife had been retained and carried nway.and
i that with it, as with the sword of some dark
avenger, had been slashed and mangled the
body cl the victim.
The horror of dark and impenetrable mys-
: tory spread through the public mind. The
murder, in any shape, was sufficiently terrible;
but in this form, and with the circumstances
of needless violence which accompanied it, it
1 was almost without a parellel. The mystery
I was perhaps more dreadful than tho very
; knowledge of thc crime. What could have
| been the motive for all thist Something
j might be explained by the possible known
possession of money, but not all. There must
have been—and every one felt it—something
deeper, stronger, more fiendish even than this,
in the motives for the murder of Bartholomew
Burke.
The feeling which grew out of the crime—
strong as it might have been, without any extraneous aid—was materially assisted by the
growing mystery and violence of the metropolis of tho Western World. Murder unpunished
and indeed undetected, had ceased to be what
ouce it was—an exception—and grown to be
almost a rule. But a little time had elapsed
since a distinguished physician was shot down
in Broadway by a female hand, evidently in
revenge for some wrong roal or imaginary ;
and the investigation which followed the crime
had not only failed to disclose the perpetrator, but even to establish good ground Of suspicion against any one.
Bawl the Bo;<t of Ecrke's Assassin.—[See Story of "Barty Hurler'
Aud when stripped of every blessing, and when
eveiy hope bad Sown,
And i-i hi-own ,Intiw""i.,1 room he sat and thought
alone,
How she clasped his ariui around ber neck, around
liis threw her own—
Aud sobbing '*/h*Aer,''madeyiimfoel her love had
stronger grown—
Made bim reel the deeply bitter wrongs he had hSs
Florence done.
And now he sits, aad cn his knee te toljs his daughter's thilJ,
U.*r mother g ulng M t:s faco, to her now grown so
iuild.
And grandpa imotthes his grandchild's curls off from
her eainct eyes,
And -Liltle Florence ■'—" darling child '. is all thai Le
re-.iSre I;
And she wonders at L.s gentle words, nor dreams
whut memories tttt I
jcarcely realized how soon those things should
become k> common as almost to be considered
unavoidable; and the resolve expressed by the
authorities, that nothing should be left undone,
ai.d no expense should be spared to ferret out
the murderer—was echoed by the voice of the
whole city.
Months have passed, and up to this day no
clue has been obtained. The murderer of
and
i not even a suspicion of his personality—be-
I yond the little to which I have before alluded
! —has been entertained. In the rush of the
pleasures, the vices, the business occupations
i of a great city, the occurrence itself has al-
! most ceased to be a matter of thought and
conversation, and only on the melancholy
j books of the Coroner's office, and the scarcely
' less melancholy private papers of the police
I department, is there any known record.
Only there—I said—and yet I, of all men
should hold different language. I know that
there it a record, and I am not disposed longer
'o withhold it from the world. Mystery and
. crime grow day by day among us; and every
week adds to the number of strange criminal
; complications which seem to be only capable
j of unravelment at the day ol judgment. The
' most fearful mystery of all ha= just ljcen
! made apparent in our midst, and the heart of
the city is yet standing still with the fear and
i the horror which it inspires. There is no end
j of justice to serve in the circumstances I am
about to relate;—had there lieen, I should
have been obliged by my duty as a citizen to
reveal them months since. Public wonder
may be allayed, however, and general curiosity
satisfied; and that motive should be enough,
when the whole of our social security seems so
'. threatening as it is at this moment.
my hook, even if I took nothing. So with shirts of intense redness and wool, came up to
one hand I comirenced drawing in the line, the body trom the door, and iu a moment one
It came with some difficulty, and yet the hook of Ihem, rolling his quid to thc other side of
Th» community yet ! was evidently not fast in a rock, for with some i his mouth, exclaimed :
*>. . . . .— I +...;.,.. ,.!'..... ;■♦,.,in..- I.i. ■ linn i* , i . . i\ 1*.., 1 t'i, 1 ..\l"l... It- V..._n t '.
[W. iUen for the New York Leader.]
BARTY BURKE;
snuuuiE DY TH A smiR cuan
BY DB. JOSETH SHARFE.
•' For time, at last, sou all things even;
And if we do tn:t wateh the hour
There never yet wai mortal power
Tint could escape, if unforgiven,
Um luUent search and vigiUong.
' >!' him who treasures up a wroug!*'
JUlKlTi.
I.
I am about to tell a strange story, which
must take its chances of being believed. I
have lillle care, myself, npon that point, except as its truth may furnish a clue to one of
the mysterious crimes of the past year, which
has seemed heretofore to baffle public effort as
II.
I spent two weeks of vacation in September
last from duties iu town, at a place of considerable resort within about thirty miles of this
eity, where fine air, excellent riding, and incomparable fishing conspired to attract my
lawyer friend, Jack R , and inyself, as
they had often done in previous years.
We had spent some few days very agreeably,
riding until nearly all the places of interest in
the neighborhood were exhausted, lounging
along the shores in every variety of pictur-
e.-que costume that sudden freedom from the
r straints of city life could suggest; and flirt-
| ing—it must be confessed—with half a dozen
| of the dark eyed girls that sported bewitching
| straw flats aud dresses of questionable fashion
' in afternoon promenades upon the beach.
But—as I have said—the principal attrac-
j tion of the place was its fishing. Such fabu-
: lous luck in ensnaring "woakiish," "barb,"
•'bass." "porgies" etc., as Jack and myself enjoyed—would have been voted marvellous in
the days when we burned our faces to a Spanish brown, and neglected business by the day,
. in getting questionable nibbles off Governor's
| Island and around Robin's Reef.
Pay after day we paddled oft* the clumsy but
well as private specula :ion,
Not many months since, a man named Bar- j tale yawl we had engaged at the beginning of
tholomew or Baity Burke, was found lying in | our visit, to the fishing ground, a few hundred
his room in a bu«iness establishment in Broad- , yards from shore, and, sometimes alone, and
way, in this city, so hacked and mangled by : sometimes with quite a fleet of boats in our
the blows of the assassin's knife, thafrthe lives j neighborhood, tempted thc finny beauties to
of fifty men might have Wn let out through ; their fate. Then, when tired of the sport,
ll
itX
the gaping wounds. Head and trunk and
limbs were gashed and almost severed, as if a
Tery butcher had been engaged in the bloody
work. Never, since the history of crime began,
did a more fiendish determination seem to have
been employed, to let out the little life of oue
man, and to mar thc temple which onea had
held it.
Something of robbery may have been committed—it was possible. Drawers were open,
and a trunk was somewhat disarranged. The
savings of the slain man might have been
there, and they might have been deposited
elsewhere—co one knew. And yet the suspicion of robbery was seriously impaired by
the fact that valuables ofa hundred times more
worth than any possible amount of money
which the murdered man might have possessed
—valuables, too, light and easily carried
away—were left untouched, and scattered, it
Beemed, with a reckless disregard, by the perpetrator in closing up the terrible tragedy in
which he had been engaged.
Horror spread over the great city. A murder accompanied with circumstances of more
determined and fiendish malice, seemed never
to have been known in the annals of crime.
Mystery wrapped the whole affair as with a
shroud of eternal blackness. A man had been
seen in company with the murdered man on
the evening of hig death; he appeared to have
been seen with him previously. A man was
seen at an earlier hour sitting by the window,
in the summer air, apparently drinking with
him. A man of dark mein and something of
foreign speech had entered a drinking house
below, had been sees to take ft large knife
i and with a consciousness that wc had taken as
I many fish as could possibly be used and given
away while in good condition—we would
: produce from marvellous side pockets stores ! crcisc the powers of President or Secretary of
! ot fragrant Havana*, and liquids that are often state, as coroner.
tension of my strong bass-line it neared the
surface of the water.
"Jack!" I said. "Kirby is dying! I" ve got a
bite!"
-rmph!*' he grunted, half asleep, '• what is
its' Mummychug or snatch-bait? There is
nothing else in the way of a fish, to-day!"
"Oh, neither," I said, "I have hitched fast.
I think, to one of the sunken treasure chests
of Kidd, by the weight; and it is coming up."
"Eh, what ?" said Jack, half rising, "what
are you fast ol 1 a prize ? Pshaw, no, probably one of the dead dogs that used to torment
us ofl' Diamond Reef! Don't bother me again
unless you have at least a casket of jewels,*'
and he dropped back to his position.
Slowly I had drawn the object to the surface of the water, and at this moment the
hook came iu sight. If was attached to a
piece of dark cloth, and in an instant more a
dark form rose to tbe surface.
"My God! Jack, look there !*' I spoke, with
my voice full of terror—I confess it—for I
have never yet, in the practice of my profession, learned to look suddenly upou death
without a tremor.
'•What?*' he asked, springing up suddenly,
alarmed at my tone.
"Look there!" aiul bu looked. I bad
clutched again the line half dropped for a
moment, and we saw the prize 1 had taken.
It was a ghastly and disfigured corpse! My
hook had caught in the lappel of his coat, and
raised him, with the head highest, to the surface. My terror was over, theu, and I reached
down my hands to prevent the line breaking
as it rose from the buoyancy of the water.
Jack had caught sight of the gha.-t!y object,
and threw up his hands for an instant in horror.
The face of a man was exposed, the long,
dark hair hanging heavily back into the
water, evidently some days drowned, but retaining its natural looks enough to identify
him to oue who had known him. Thc face
had been a noble one. with well cut features,
dark complexion, dark and heavy moustache
and whiskers, slightly foreign in appearance.
The form, when Jack aud myself had enough
recovered from the sudden sensation to draw
it entirely out to sight, proved to have beeu
of medium height, well kuit. aud clothed iu a
suit of black, that had once been of good texture, but was now threadbare and worn.
We looked hastily for any marks upon the
face and head that might have told of violence, but found none. It may be supposed
that our fishing excursion for the moruing
was over, and making the body fust by a rope
to the stern of the boat, we rowed ashore iu
search of that most important personage in
any locality—city or country—the coroner.
If I was not writing upon a solemu and
serious subject. I should stop here to remark,
that the selection of that particular functionary, whose melancholy office it is to take
charge of the remains of so many who have
; perished by accident or by violence—and upon
whom so much depends in the tracing out of
crime, is couducted very much in thc same
manner in city and country. In the one, thc
office is generally given as a reward for some
i political service, aud in the other the names
i of those officers are generally tacked on at the
| end of a county ticket, to secure a certain
i number of doubtful votes in a particular
j locality. The consequence is, in both cases,
that the functionary is generally as fit to ex-
naraed in connection therewith—and spread at
lazy length upon the thwarts, chat cozily over
past scenes, and gaze over the blue hills that a
few miles away sloped back from the wooded
shore.
One morning the tide served somewhat unusually early, and Jack and myself, who had
s not partaken in the dissipation of a hop at the
principal '-boarding-house" the evening be-
! fore—were the only persons upon thc ground.
i That morning it seemed that we were not to
: be repaid for our enterprize, for the fish would
not bite. Hand-line and pole temptations
were alike fruitless, and as the Septcml>er sun
came up the sky in a slant blaze of light, we
liegan to feel the effects of his presence. Jack
R abandoned his line, and throwing his
broad Panama over his face lay back upon the
stern sheets ef the boat, telling me to "wake
him up when Kirby died," and declaring his
intention to wait.
My pole hung loosely in my hands, while
my own eyes were half shut, and tny thoughts
upon anything else than fishing—my hook as
I was well aware, drifting along near the bottom, at the mercy of the slight current—when
suddenly I became aware that the ripple was
acting more strongly upon it, and that it must
be fast in something at the bottom. I had no
idea of any sunken treasure, or any prize
more interesting than a knot of eel-grass or a
mud tussock; but it was necessary to extricate
Coroner Smith—we will call him Smith—
i who was called at once on our reaching thc
I shore, by the crowd of people who gathered in
a few moments after our landing—was no ex-
j ception to the general rule. He was ignorant.
; pompous and fussy, with a strong impression
I of the dignity of his position, and the repul-
i eiveness of the task of examining a dead body :
i and at any other time I should have been dis-
! posed to have him daguerreotyped as a local
; Dogberry.
The body was removed to an outhouse of
! one of the boarding-houses, and a jury em-
j pannelled for the inquest By virtue of my
medical reputation, I was called upon to examine the deceased for marks of violence, and
did so, without any result. There was no distortion—nothing to indicate any other death
than that by drowning, and thc conclusion
was unanimous that such had been his end.
As to the personality of thc dead man,
nothing was known. He was a total stranger
to all in the place, and a general inspection
failed for a time to reveal any one who had
ever seen him. Thc verdict was about being
rendered, under advice from the lawyer of the
place of "An unknown man—death by drowning," when a new arrival put a new face upon
the inquest.
Two sailor-like looking men, whom even
the blazing heat of a sultry September could
not prevent adhering to tarpaulin hats, and
•Why. look here, Jim! Blow me if that
ain't the old codger that lived in the brickkiln!"
Jim, thus appealed to, corroborated the :
resilience of the deceased in that pa'ticular i
locality ; and thc two being duly sworn, one
after the other, deposed in substance that they
had known the deceased for some w*?eks, as !
living in a loose shanty of his own erection.
made from the boards of an unusod brick-shed, j
at the foot of a bluff headland across fsie cove i
a mile away, ne had eome there some weeks !
back, they said, and no one knew his name or !
anything more of hiin than that bc had oc- '
casionally been seen fishing and oystering on
the shore, and had sometimes purchased the j
commonest necessaries of poverty at a little '
grocery back among the hills. He had not |
been seen by tbem for several days, and no
doubt by some accident he had met his death
whiL* picking up his scanty liring on the
shore.
This gave a clue to the personality of the
dead man, but none to his identity. However,
the matti r was of little consequence. He was
a stranger, and undeniably poor enough to
make it small object to t -ace out his antecedents very particularly. *>o 1' * verdict was
rerdered in due form, \*it-if"U'"f addition indicating that the deceased had lived in lhe place
mentioned; after which, duly deposited in
a coffin of pine, with a coarse shroud, thc
body was buried in the pauper lot of the village cemetery, and the good people forgot thc
event in a few days, ready for the next excitement that might offer.
But for my awe of coroners—and my sad
remembrance how often rash persons who have
dared to meddle with the dignity of such functionaries have been summarily annihilated—I
might have suggested at the inquest what certainly occurred to me—that before the rendering of the verdict the shanty should be
examined for any possible clue which it might
ftinii.-h to the identity of the dead man. But
suffice it to say that I kept the suggestion to
myself, and that when I acted upon it I did it
as a private speculation.
III.
JackR-
■ and myself were fishing agaiu,
twu days afterwards—our last day—in a somewhat different spot from that where we had
found the body, aad nearly opposite the high
bluff alluded to by the witnesses at thc inquest. My old curiosity was not yet quite extinguished- and when the tido was pretty well
spent I suggested to Jack that we should pull
ashore at the bluff, and look for thc shanty
where the poor fellow had lived.
Jack assented, and we directed our clumsy
yawl shoreward. Running her hard on the
beach we landed, and made our way by a kind
of narrow path up thc hill. Half-way up to
thc summit, we found the deserted brick yard
they had designated; the sheds nearly tumbled
to ruin, part of the posts fallen, and most of
the clapboards carried away by different
hands, with the questionable honesty generally shown towards thc old and dilapidated. The
wheels were still there that had been used for
mixing and tempering thc clay, and half an
acre of sun dried bricks were spread over the
drying ground, but the desolation was complete.
In one corner of the grounds, under the
shade of an immense sycamore that had been
a landmark on the shore for hundreds of
years, and at the edge of a spring where the
clear water bubbled from the white clay, we
found the shanty that had been designated.
It was a shanty indeed—sucb a refuge as a
farmer might have made with loose boards for
his sheep or swine when a rainy day was approaching—formed of some of the fallen
sticks of timber from the sheds, with loose
boards laid over them entirely unfastened.
The hut seemed just as the poor fellow had
left it on the day he was drowned. He had a
bed, and kitchen utensils and a fire-place. The
first was a sheaf or two of straw—that it
needed small imagination to suppose had been
pilfered from some barnyard over the hills;
thc cooking arrangements were comprised in
a large iron skillet without a handle, and a
spoon still left in it; and the fireplace was
composed of two bricks set edgewise, upon
which the skillet had evidently been placed,
while his scanty fire of chips and leaves was
kindled beneath iL
A somewhat closer search revealed a shelf
made of a piece of clapboard suspended by four
strings from a nail, upon which lay a German
pipe, a small remnant of tobacco, two or
three biscuit, and an old pocket knife.
Taking possession ofthe knife as a memento
of the discovery of the body, we were about
to quit the shanty and return to our boat—
being strongly reminded by certain internal symptoms that it was time for dinner—
when Jack struck his foot against something
lying under the straw, at what had apparently
been the head of the miserable bed.
Pulling away the straw, we found, wrapped
in a piece of old cloth, a box of singular construction. It was a wooden cabinet, with
handles that seemed lo have been silver ; thc
cabinet itself was once evidently a piece ol
curions workmanship, inlaid with tasteful arabesque devices in lighter colored woods. The
box was something like a foot in length, and
half that size in the other dimensions, and
scratched and disfigured as it was, had evidently been once of considerable cost.
The lock was broken off from the old cabinet,
and wc opened it. It contained a large
quantity of papers, of all imaginable colors
and sizes, much of it written over in pencil,
with an occasional use of pen and ink, in English of an idiom that showed the writer to
have been of foreign birth, and in a hand that
betokened a liberal education. It contained
nothing beside, except a small package of
dark bombazine, tied around with thread,
which upon opening, we found to contain a
little brooch of antique construction and one
full, long tress of beautiful sunny brown hair.
• Of course wc felt a right of partial administration on the effect! of the man whom wc had
fished up from the river and assisted to bury ;
and made no scruple of taking possession of
these sad mementos. Rowing back to our
boarding house, we talked wonderiggly of the
rtvauuu*. ibat I llrfj I fajUI#ll) llflllg 0*4
cabinet, that tress of Funny hair, and those half
illegible scrawls of paper.
Had we known all then that we afterward
deciphered, perhaps wc should have ventured
to intrude upon the dignity of ihe Coroner
sufficiently to apprize him of the discovery we
had made ; pothiips not, for I really felt tbat
we had a better right to the possession and enjoyment of tLe mystery than any of the careless crowd who had assisted to lay away the
drowned mau in bis pine coffin.
• We left our place of resort the next day and
returned to the city, and weeks elapsed before
I, who retained possession—by Jack's consent
-j-of thc box, found leisure to attempt deciphering the scraps of paper, aud connecting
them together. When I did so, I need not say
that I was surprised : and had there been any
end of justice to answer in the revelation, this
story would not have been so long withheld.
As it wa', curiosity only was to be satisfied,
and mine being sated. I left that of the public
to take care of itself. Perhaps even now I
should not have taken the trouble necessary to
place the facts in an intelligible shape, but for
the strong reminder of another mysterious
murder occurring in our midst.
That old box contained in those loose and
desultory scraps of paper the proofs that the
man whom I had fished up from the bed of
the river was thc slayer of Bartholomew Burke,
and a clue to the terrible vengeance which
had so hacked him to pieces, with blows
enough to let out the lives of a hundred men!
These I will give as I have arranged them
in my own way from those fragmentary papers,
and as briefly as possible.
NMITII'E OF MYSTERY
OF
HIGH LIFE AND LOW.
A TALE OF CRIME AND RETRIBUTION.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Fly, Arden, fly '. Avoid this fatal roof
Where murder lurks, and certain death await thee.
Wonder—no raaltor where. Tum but from bonci>
Thou canst not miss thy way.
AirrKx or Favbrmmb.
Motliink-1 hear, metliinlcs I see
(losta, pdiliu.-. fiends; my phantasi*
Presents a thou-aud n.-iy shaj>es;
Dolefull outcries, fearlull sighted,
My sad and dismal! soul all'rightes.
Bl'RTOS.
William Linley remained silent at thc helm
for some time, young Trucks pulling steadily
over the smootli water.
The young man Ihen cautiously, and with
every possible reserve, explained the truth.
After thc first question or two, and the natural
cry of anxiety with regard to Wharton, Quad-
roona sat motionless by the side of our hero.
Grief and terror are seldom garrulous, except
in the weak and timid, and Quadroona was
none of these. Her character had been tried
in the furnace of misfortune, and it had come
forth golden and pure. Cora would have
murmured at the suddenness of their adventure, and against thc horrors of confronting
the dangers of the deep on such a dark and
gloomy night, but she was speedily silenced.
" We are acting for the best," said her mistress, quietly. "Silence!"'
The mulatto girl bowed her head. It was
not for her to show dread when her beautiful
and young companion willingly confronted
the perils of the deep.
Their position was, indeed, one of no small
danger. They were steering wholly at present by a star, and had in a very short time
lost sight of the brigantinc, which, until then,
had loomed dim and ghastly against the sky.
But the night was unusually dark and clouded
fcr such calm weather, and was indeed becoming gradually overspread, so that steering
by the stars would soon be out of the question.
" What think you of the weather V suddenly
exclaimed Linley, to the faithful young Englishman.
" Well, sir, there's an odd sensation in the
air," said Trucks. " I fancy we shall have
wind afore long."
" That is my opinion—indeed, I fancy there
is a puff now. You had better give up rowing and step the mast."
"Ay, ay, sir!" replied the ready sailor.
"We will then lie too. We can now safely
light our lantern, and keep her head steady by
thc compass," continued Linley, addressing
Quadroona, after scanning the whole horizon
with a night glasB. '
"No sign of the brigantinc?" whispered
Quadroona.
"None," replied Linley, "and 'tis now an
hour since we left. All we can do is wait."
The sailor stepped the mast, aod then all relapsed into their former silence.
Thc night was now dark and gloomy, thc
wind was rising very gradually, however, and
threatening at present only a steady breeze,
so that little anxiety was felt upon this point.
The smooth surface of the waters began to be
milled, and the motion of thc boat caused
phosphoric sparkles to rise around them in a
luminous circle. The compass was at the feet
of the steersman, with the lantern so fixed as
to keep its light steady on its face. Still a
portion of the light of the lamp escaped upwards, and fell upon the faces of the silent
watchers.
"The dangers and doubts of such an enterprise surely are not suited to you," said Linley, presently, who should rather be pillowed
in luxury, in some quiet country, where such
men %s those yonder are not found."
'•I have been in far more dangerous positions than the one in which you now see me,"
replied Quadroona, in a low whisper. Cora
and the young sailor were talking apart, "and
it moves me not. My thoughts are for Wharton ; will he not be in danger on board, if, indeed, mutiny is meant?"
"Mutiny is meant,*' said Linley, in a low
tone; "but there are always several parties in
a ship, and I hope and trust that Wharton's
party will prove the strongest."
"Heaven grant it so!" continued Quadroona,
sighing, "for I am already weary of the sea.
After all that has been my fate, I would gladly
seek some quiet nook in a free country, and.
with a companion suited to my tastes and feelings, hide my head in humble and mediocre
happiness."
There was someth:ng thrilling and seductive
in her tones that weut to the heart of the young
man. Thoy were seated side by side, and as
the boat liegan to toss upon the waters, and
to be rocked by the wind, his arm stole unconsciously around to support her. She seemed
either not to renark jil, -6£*feit&cUl
the aid. Thc lamp fell dim an3" ntnHl.- u
her speiking face, which, dashed by sorrow
aud sadness, never appeared to Linley to have
been so beautiful. It wa* a dangerous position
for two so young and inexperienced in the
world's ways, especially where one was affianced to another, while the other was apparently in the same position.
We do not say that William Linley was absolutely in love with thc beauliful and fascinating Quadroona; it would be erroneous to
lix his sensations by any descriptive word. He
was iu a vague and dreamy stato, that would
have allowed him to be, perhaps, seduced to
passionate emotions by any lovely girl. The
hour, the wide expanse of sea, the hot blast,
the danger, the uncertainty that hung over
them, were not calculated to produce a very
reflective state of mind. For thc nonce, then,
he was—we confess it with grief and shame—
unfaithful to the thought of her he had so
long and so truly adored.
In the inmost recesses of our hearts can any
of us truly declare that our thoughts have
never roved, and that we have been truly and
unswervingly faithful to one bright peculiar
star—the one idea of our life 1
•'Happiness is a rare thing!" said Linley, in
a low, hurried tone ; "but if happiness is to
be found, it muet bc where two in this world
suffice wholly to themselves, arc all in all to
each other, have no secrets but what are
shared, no hopes but what arc the hopes of
both, aud this cau never be but where thc fate
of toth is cast in thc humble shade ; it can lie
the joy only of a couple forgetting the world,
and by thc world forgot."
"You speak warmly!" replied Quadroona,
with a sickly smile ; "but you are very young.
A year or two more, and. like tbe rest, ambition will be your first goddess."
Linley started and almost withdrew his arm.
He instantly replaced it, however, as if it had
beet jerked away by the motion of thc boat
But he remained silent.
"Of what are you thinking ?'' said thc young
girl, quickly, after a short pause,
"Of ambition," replied Linley, gravely—
"yes. I understand ambition too—to be something in a woman's eyes—to raise ones self
above tbe common selfith herd. A woman
worthy of the name must always ite proud of
a man who raises himself. There is an instinct
in a woman to look up to a man—she clings to
him for support and protection. The higher
be raises himself by honorable means, thc
more she must love and esteem him."
-'True—but he is only half hers," said the
girl, sadly. "My education has been a strange
one," she added. "Brought up in the south,
with thc blood of foreigners in my veins—African blood I mean—the adoration of a being
of the opposite sex has been my dream. Your
European code has startled me. At my school
I was told to shun love as I would poison. I
was told it would be the curse of my existence
—that indifference is the only true road to
happiness—or that, if women does unfortunately feel passion, she must crush the sentiment within her, hide it from the man of her
choice, and be the thing my soul despises—a
hypocrite 1"
And the hot wind blew, and the sky lowered(
and the boat rocked beneath tbem, and the
whispering pair knew nothing of their whereabouts on thc huge and stormy ocean.
"You would rather be the woman of the
south?" Wicked fellow—he took delight in
that dangerous discussion.
They were forced to speak in whispers;
their heads were bent close to each otber, and
the perfumed breath ef the beautiful girl
fanned his cheek
"Yes! I must be the slave ot the man I
love. I must make him my all in all on eai Uu
I know little of any other world. I must
look up to him. bave no other thought, no
idea bnt him, or I must die. If my husband
cast the sunshine of his smile on another woman. I would kill her and myself
"Not him P» «ricd Linley.
"No!" said Quadroona, with a shudder;
"the weapon would fall from my hand. 1
could wish him happy, but I could not live to
see him so."
'•Great will be the happiness of him who
wins this fair hand." whispered Linley—we
are afraid, almost passionately.
"Do you think so?" murmured Quadroona.
There was a dead silence for a few moments, for both were buried in their own
thoughts. William Linley was gazing with
fixed and passionate eyes upon the lovely girl,
who was gazing with wrapt attention at the
compass. The young man was in a dream.
All the world was forgotten at that moment
A vision of some rich and fertile valley in
some sunny southern clime presented itself to
his imagination, where, in a hut, ministering
to their mutual wants by fishing and thc chase,
he and Quadroona might be happy—rose up
before him. A wild, impetuous passion appeared to take possession of him, and was
about to find vent in words, when he was
bronght to his senses in a somewhat abrupt
manner.
"Sir!" whispered Trucks, almost under his
breath, "thc brigantinc!"
All raised their eyes, and. to their utter
astonishment, found that, while they had been
lying to. the Pearl of thc Ocean, under a press
of sail, had been edging down upon them, until it lay not three hundred yards distant, close
hauled. Several lanterns were seen in different parts of the vessel, which gave ber a
ghost-like appearance. Her tall masts and
large sails were clearly defined against thc
sky. They could hear thc splash ofthe water
under her bows.
"Pull away!" whispered Linley, steering
exactly in the wind's eye.
On came the brigantine at a speul which
could not for one moment be attained by their
large boat with only one man at the oars,
when suddenly a drum was heard strangely
across the waters, the yards were braced
round, and in a few minutes the vessel was
lying like a log on the water, with every sail
furled.
Some confusion here appeareil to take place
on the deck of the brigantinc, voices rose loud
on the evening air, a pistol was fired, and then
loud execrations were heard—the clash of
arms, the report of musketry. The struggle
lasted but ten minutes, and then all was over.
Thc fugitives heard and saw all with horror. They were incapable of speech or motion, and were still more horrified when the
heavy fall of bodies into the water proclaimed
that the victors were burying their dead. It
was a moment of awful suspense. They
could hear distinctly, for they were not more
than a hundred yards from the brigantine.
"Heavens! who can be killed?" said Quadroona, iu a tone so cold and rigid, her companion was cjuite startled.
"No man can say—hence my wish to keep
at a distance," replied Linley. "Can you
steer?"
The young girl nodded assent.
"Keep her so, then," replied the young man,
and moving forward, he unstopped the mast,
and bent with energy to the oars, in company
with Trucks. Cora quietly imitated his example.
"Cautiously," he whispered; "not a sound
must reach them, or we are lost. Let her not
swerve from her course."
They all obeyed in silence these directions,
and the boat gradually increased its distance
from the brigantine, which, shortly after, was
again under ea-y sail on the opposite tack.—
mid distinctly see the lights of her
'TLlfiley continued tm his way,
however, until the Pearl of the Ocean was
again out of sight. Then, and then only, he
once more put up ber mast, hoisted and trimmed her sail, and again steered towards the
cast.
His ears were meanwhile carefully on the
watch for the slightest sound.
An hour passed in silence, and then, to his
i horror and astonishment, a gun was fired close
to them. Thc brigautine lay a quarter of a
J mile ahead of them' in a direct line with their
j course.
Linley recollected the captain's agreement
and signal; but, ignorant of the true state of
things, he again lowered the tell-tale sail, and
lay still and watchful on the waters.
A second flash—a second report boomed
loud across the waters, and, by the momentary
! flashes of light, tha brigantinc was seen to be
going to the northward. They were evidently
cruising about in search of the boat. Linley
s had almost began to hope.
The third gun was fired, and Linley's heart
1 beat wildly. If that were the last, they Jiad
i nothing to fear; their friends had proved the
victors.
"Heaven send 'tis so!" said Quadroona in
| a whisper, when Linley imparted this comfort.
"Hark !*' burst from _ the pent up chest of
I the young man; " a fourth gun' All is
Host!*'
The silence of despair followed fora moment
; or two this outburst of grief and passion, and
1 then, thc brigantine still occasionally firing on
i its way, the fugitives hurriedly plied oars and
! hoisted the sails to escape the murderous and
j licentious knaves, whose community was pollution.
Gradually, as the night wore on, the wind
rose, until the boat was actually flying before
it. Fortunately, as yet the waters of the vast
ocean had not beeu worked up into jealous
fury, ind with due precautions they proceeded
i without danger. Trucks held thc sheet, while
! Linley steered, a duty above all others he had
learned during his days of amateur seaman-
> ship. Cora and Quadroona, at his earnest
I solicitations, lay down, a spare sail over
them, and tried to court slumber. And thus
the hours sped until the first streak of daylight.
The dawn was menacing, indeed. The sun
rose lurid and red from behind a bank of
clouds, the sky was streaked with dark vapor
whirling along with frantic speed, the wind
was gradually increasing to a gale, but not a
sign of land or vessel was to be seen. The two
men looked carefully and with lowering brows
to windward, to leeward, to the sky. to the
i waters, and a meaning glance was exchanged.
| Not a word was spoken of danger, although
I neither expected that the boat would much
; longer be able to stand the raging force of the
I rising waters. Quadroona sat up, calm and
i collected. That young girl, over whom so few
' summers had passed, bad faced danger too
| often in its most appaling shapes to bc easily
] alarmed. But Cora was, at the same time, sul-
■ len and menacing in her attitude.
"It were wise to eat a biscuit and drink a
i draught of water," said Linley, despite himself, in a husky tone.
The women silently acquiesced, and ate their
scanty breakfast in silence. Tbey did so from
reflection, not from want On the same principle, Linley and Trucks both ate heartily.—
They foresaw the time when their every energy would be needed.
Again all relapsed into silence for about an
hour, when the sun having risen into the heavens, the scene became a little less gloomy,
though the cheerful luminary appeared but
seldom on the waters.